In The Firelight
by EstellaB
Summary: JillxEustace. A proper lovestory this time. Oneshot. Rated for one kiss.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: In which Jill is despondent, Edmund is amused, Peter is incorrect, and Eustace is just plain terrified. Some time after The Silver Chair. **

**Disclaimer: Narnia belongs to C.S. Lewis, not me. And the song? I don't know who sang it first, but the version I have on tape is by Ella Fitzgerald. (She's good. I recommend her). I don't own that either, you see. So please don't sue me.**

**Warning: Written under the influence of Coca-Cola. May make little to no sense.**

**23.12.06 Very, very minor rewrite. Pretty much just a couple of words replaced. See, I let my brother read this (I'll never live it down; he's been laughing ever since, being fifteen, male, and therefore thoroughly disgusted with romance in general) and told me that some parts just jerked a little bit. But probably, the differences aren't even noticeable.**

"Peter." It was a cosy Sunday afternoon, and Jill was curled up in a chair in Peter Pevensie's living room. It was the very start of the Christmas holidays, and Mr and Mrs Pevensie had been called away to America, as they had been once before. Susan was living on her own in London, but Edmund and Lucy had gone to stay with their older brother, who was reading Classics at Cambridge University and had recently rented a small flat of his own. Lucy and Jill were sharing the tiny bedroom, and the three boys were sleeping in the living room. Snow was falling, the first of the season, and Lucy had insisted on going out for a walk. Jill had no such desire; outside it was cold, and wet, and her left glove had a hole in it. She was content simply to sit in an easy chair by the fire, watching the snow fall. Eustace was engrossed in a book, and Peter and Edmund were talking animatedly about swordplay. "Peter," she repeated, a little more insistently. Jill was in the habit of addressing Peter when really her conversation was directed to the room at large. Eustace and Edmund suspected her of harbouring a secret fancy for the High King, and they weren't very wrong, though Peter himself was obliviously unaware of any such thing. "Peter!" a third time.

At last Peter was distracted from his absorbing conversation. "Yes, Jill?" he replied mildly.

"Why do you think I don't have a beau yet?" Edmund sniggered at this. Eustace closed his book, placed it onto the table rather loudly, and began to dig furiously at Peter's threadbare carpet with the toe of his slipper. Susan had thrown her hands up in horror when she had set eyes upon her brother's lodgings, for Peter was very much 'baching' it. The excuse of bachelorhood had not cut any ice with Su, though, for she had simply told an amused Peter that it was about time he found himself a girl anyway.

"I'm sure you will in time," he replied calmly. "You probably just haven't found the right one yet." He gave her a look that seemed to include Edmund, for some reason. Eustace got up all of a sudden and began to poke the fire violently with the poker. "You're only sixteen, after all... the same age as Eustace and even younger than Lucy."

Edmund, with a smirk, decided to entered the conversation. "So... any particular qualities in mind for this beau?" Eustace stopped poking the fire with quite as much gusto.

"Well..." Jill sat up straighter in her chair and propped her chin up with her hands, her grey eyes fixed on Faraway. "Of course I would like him to be handsome..." there was an almighty crash as Eustace sat back down, his face scarlet, presumably from the heat of the fire, "...but that is irrelevant, really. I suppose when you love someone, you think that they are good-looking anyway."

"Yes, you do...I mean, I'm sure you do," Eustace interjected, quickly correcting himself. Edmund snickered at this hasty interruption, and earned a glare from his cousin. Peter announced at this point that he was going out to find Lucy and stretch his legs.

"So being handsome is not necessary, really... But I would want him to be kind... and fearless." The discontent that had briefly been absent from Eustace's face returned with reinforcements. "No, not fearless... but able to overcome his fears, because that's the true definition of bravery, isn't it?" Edmund glanced at his cousin, who had picked up his book but had not yet opened it. "And... and of course he would have to know and _believe _about Narnia. And he'd have to believe in God and have a relationship with Him, because you know I do ever since Narnia. And," here she turned crimson and looked down, "I hope he'd think I was beautiful. Not just _say _it, you know, but really believe it. I'd be able to tell the difference. Nobody's ever thought I was beautiful before... not and really meant it...not even my parents." Eustace glanced at Jill, with her sparkling grey eyes and flushed cheeks, and wondered if she were making that part up, or if she were really blind enough to think herself plain. "And-"

Eustace cut her off angrily. "Enough! Jill, do you not see that this is all fantasy? You'll _never _find a man like that, not in a hundred thousand years, and even if you do he would not be halfway good enough for you!" He stalked out of the room and slammed the door behind him. Edmund winced.

"Ed," Jill murmured, her eyes still fixed on a dreamily horizon that the boy could not see, "what do you think?"

"I think," Edmund replied, "that you are going to find yourself the right young man sooner or later. How much sooner depends on your own stubbornness and the shyness of the lad in question." He stood up and said that he was going to find Eustace. "And," he added, "I'd appreciate it if you could go and find Peter and Lucy. Lucy sometimes gets miserable on snowy days because she misses Narnia. Possibly that was why Peter went out to look for her." Well, actually, as Edmund knew perfectly well, Peter had gone out because he had caught the matchmaking bug from Susan, and wanted to leave his brother alone with Jill, but Lucy's occasional blue mood on a snowy day might also have had some bearing.

* * *

Eustace was standing on the balcony, looking dejectedly out at the snow-topped city of Cambridge. Edmund emerged from the doorway and observed his cousin for a few minutes before he spoke. After Eustace's encounter with Aslan and his "un-dragoning", the two cousins had been very close, and Edmund knew that if Eustace would talk to anyone about Jill, it would be him. He noticed that Eustace was shivering, and that his cousin was oblivious to the cold he had no doubt. Susan, in her days as a Friend of Narnia, had taught him well, and he walked over to Eustace with a coat in his hand. He slung it around his friend's shoulders. He did not bother to tell Eustace that he was going to catch his death of cold.

"Why don't you just tell her, Eus?" he asked quietly.

"Tell who, what?"

Edmund rolled his eyes. "Tell Jill how you feel about her, of course."

Eustace did not blush, but he glanced away. "So, how _do _I feel about Jill Pole, Ed?"

"You know perfectly well."

"No, I don't. I wish I did." Now the blush was there. "But I don't."

"Oh." Edmund paused. "I think you do, deep down-but you won't let yourself believe it. I don't know why-I've never been in love myself-" Eustace tensed at this, but did not deny it, "-but I can hazard a guess. You've told yourself time and time over that you're far too young to feel as deeply for Jill as you do-and now you believe it." He squeezed Eustace's shoulder. "Am I right or am I right?"

"Maybe," he conceded. "But, Ed... if I mess this up, I'll lose her forever. It's a terrifying thought. She's my best friend."

"You've been afraid of things before, and you've always faced up to them. Jill told me you were marvellous on that cliff," Edmund said quietly.

"Marvellous is not the word I would use."

"There you go then," Edmund concluded triumphantly. "She's in love with you already, and it's clouding her judgement."

Eustace shook his head. "Lets go inside and forget about it, shall we? I'm getting cold and I'm sure you are too." He stepped away from his cousin, and walked stiffly inside. Edmund bit his lip. _Well, you messed that up, Pevensie. _He knew that the subject was closed, and hoped that, by bringing it up, he had done more good than harm. Somehow he doubted it.

* * *

The snow had not stopped falling for three solid days, and Jill was cold. The Pevensies were all at a party tonight (though Edmund had only gone under sufferance, and because Lucy had promised him that he would not have to dance with anyone), and, though it was a family party and Eustace had been invited, he had opted to stay at home and keep his friend company. Edmund had raised his eyebrows a little at that, and Lucy had chuckled, but they had left them in peace.

Christmas Eve. Nobody should be alone on Christmas Eve, and Eustace was glad that Jill would not be. The five young adults had spent the day covering every area of Peter's flat in decorations. A minute Christmas tree stood cheerfully in the corner of the equally minute living room, a small fire was blazing away dependably in the grate, and the wireless was quietly crooning out jazz. Jill was curled up in front of the fire like a cat, a mug of cocoa in one hand, the other casually twiddling the sparse threads on the carpet between two fingers. Eustace entered the room with his own cocoa. There was undisguised admiration in his eyes. She was so very beautiful. Before he knew entirely what he was doing, he had opened his mouth and told her so. He could have bitten his tongue right off for doing so, but she looked up at him with a laugh and a blush.

"Liar, Scrubb. But I'm glad you said so."

_I'm not a liar, Jill, _he thought, but he said nothing. He sat in the moth-eaten armchair, and began to drink his cocoa. "Are you disappointed you couldn't go to the dance, Ji-erm-Pole?" He turned red at his blunder.

"I like dancing, but I don't like dances," Jill stated matter-of-factly, "especially ones that I go to with the Pevensie girls. Lucy is one of my best friends, of course, but I always know that people are looking at me and wondering why I'm such a plain little thing when my friend is so beautiful. And she is always asked to dance, and I never am." She didn't sound bitter, but she did sound a little frustrated.

"Well, then, it's time to rectify that." Eustace leapt to his feet, with a most uncharacteristic display of enthusiasm. He set his cocoa down on the floor, turned the wireless up to full volume, and reached a hand down. "My lady, would you honour me with a dance?"

Jill rolled her eyes, but accepted his hand.

By all rules of romance, by everything Jill knew from Shakespeare and Keats and Austen, the dance should have been awful. She should have spent the time cringing and looking everywhere but at her partner. Neither of them were particularly experienced at dancing in general, and she could feel that Eustace's hand, which rested lightly on her waist, was trembling. He kept stepping on her toes, and she often found herself returned the favour. And yet... And yet... There was some kind of magic in the air, and she found her breath running out and her heart beating faster. The wireless was playing her favourite song, and, to ease the silence a little, she began to hum along.

_You're my funny Valentine,_

_Sweet, comic Valentine, _

_You make me smile_

_With my heart._

"And you do," Eustace mumbled at that point, and, though it was clear he had not intended his friend to hear, her heart began pounding like a steam-hammer anyway. She was sure she didn't know _why _her heart should be hammering; this was _Eustace _for goodness' sakes, but it was. The magic in the air seemed to increase twenty-fold then, and Jill almost cried when the song finished, because she just wanted to stay there forever, dancing in the firelight in his arms. Eustace took his hand away from her shoulder, but he did not remove the other hand from her waist. Jill glanced upwards then, and regretted letting Lucy decorate.

"We're standing under the mistletoe..." she said faintly. "Quick, let's..." she was about to say "move", but before she could, Eustace bent his head and kissed her. It wasn't a childish kiss, either; it was a sweet, loving kiss, and she felt her face turn scarlet. She wasn't quite sure what she was going to say to him, but he solved that difficulty by speaking first. He was scarlet as well, and as he placed one hand on each of her shoulders, looking her in the eye, she could tell he was terrified.

"Jillian Anna Pole," he began, in a quiet, sober voice. She felt butterflies at the use of her full name, and concentrated very hard on remembering to breathe. "I do not want you to ever think that you are plain or passed over or unloved again. If I could, I would make you feel loved every day of your life. I was too scared to tell you before. Too scared of the way you make me feel. But I couldn't hide it any longer. Jill, I _love _you."

Now Jill had to concentrate very hard on not passing out. The butterflies were performing organised acrobatics in her stomach and her head was filled with fuzz. Eventually she managed to stammer out, "_Er..._um... I think-I love you too." Where had that come from? She hadn't even contemplated loving Eustace until he had started dancing with her, but now she saw that it was true. "But... I'm sixteen...you're sixteen...we're far too young to talk about love..."

"Yes," Eustace said calmly, and Jill realised his hand was still on her waist. She moved to sit down, and he joined her on the sofa. He slipped his arm around her waist more snugly, and it was only then that she realised how natural it felt resting there. "I know we are. But it doesn't make what I feel any less. If that dance hadn't ended then, I think it quite probable that I would have died of bliss." He was still speaking calmly and sincerely-a very different Eustace to the one with the trembling hands and scarlet face that had danced with her not five minutes ago. "And I am perfectly willing to wait. In fact, I would advise waiting, before we begin to 'talk about love'."

"That sounds very romantic and un-Scrubb-ish," Jill said with a smile.

"I can be romantic," Eustace objected, returning the smile. "I promise that, if we live to an age when I can be without raising eyebrows, I will be extremely romantic."

"I think that dancing with me in the firelight and telling me I'm beautiful is _very _romantic." She slipped her hand around his, and squeezed. "But do we have to carry on being Scrubb and Pole until we're older?"

"If you mean, do we carry on as friends and no more... I think it'd be best. I love you so much, and I think it would just be rubbing salt into the wound to be a couple. And it would be putting ourselves in too much of a tempting position. Or me, at least." He kissed her cheek, and whispered into her ear, "You are _very _beautiful, you know." Jill flushed at his insinuation, but she grinned. "And anyway, my parents would kill me if I got engaged at sixteen." He suddenly processed what he had just said, and choked on air.

"Now, I'm no very experienced in matters of this kind, so you will have to help me. Tell me, was that a _proposal?_" Jill teased.

"Not unless you want it to be," Eustace replied frankly. "I had a better scene planned to propose to you, and I was planning on waiting...oh...just a little matter of _two years _or so..." He kissed Jill's cheek again.

"I think I'll wait for your 'better scene'," was the cheerful rejoinder.

Eustace cleared his throat. "Well, quite."

They talked long into the night, those two, making golden dreams for the future, laughing and planning and just being in love, as only sixteen can. The Pevensies eventually came home, bursting with the party they had just attended ("Edmund _danced, _Jill. With a person! At his own initiative!") and found the young pair asleep on the sofa, Jill's head resting on Eustace's shoulder. They didn't question them the next morning, though; Peter, and, to some extent, Lucy, assuming that it had just been a coincidence, and Edmund too aware of his cousin's feelings to aggravate the wound by teasing; and Jill and Eustace kept their own counsel, never speaking to anyone of the dance that night in the firelight.

* * *

Edmund was feeling positively regal. It felt so _good _to be back in Narnia-no, not back in Narnia, for this was the true Narnia, the real Narnia, and so as such, he was experiencing it for the first time. Eustace had once told him of the land of Bism, with "real" gold, gold which you could drink and eat; well, this was the real Narnia. All that had passed before had just been a shadow. Peter looked more like the High King with each passing moment, and Lucy was steadily turning from a very pretty young girl into the beautiful Queen she had been born to be. This was Aslan's land. Edmund had always been the quiet one, but he felt as if he could positively _holler _for joy, and, if he had not seen something out of the corner of his eye, he would have done. Jill and Eustace were turned slightly away from the rest of the group, talking in rapid whispers. Ed heard something along the lines of never getting any older again anyway, but he was too busy being distracted by other things to notice. He cleared his throat.

"Something you're needing to tell us, Eustace?" he asked, cocking an eyebrow at the couple's clasped hands.

Eustace and Jill turned around to find that Edmund was not the only one who had noticed. Eustace coughed, a distinctly blissful look on his face.

"High King Peter, King Edmund, Queen Lucy, King Tirian, Lord Digory and Lady Polly," he began, miraculously remembering the correct Narnian protocol for such declarations. "It is my very great pleasure to introduce to you the Lady Jillian, of Narnia and formerly of England," he paused, and looked at Jill, who nodded her encouragement, "my fiancée."


	2. Appendix A: Afraid of Love

**These are the lyrics to the BRILLIANT Afraid of Love by Toto. I couldn't exactly use them in a C.S. Lewis story, unless it was utterly AU, but these lyrics inspired my fic. I heard them and thought "Ooh, I bet that's how Eustace feels about Jill," and then the plot bunny wouldn't leave me alone. I thought they might explain my ficlet a little.**

**The reason those lines are there are because it won't let me sperate out the verses with the enter key. **

* * *

Stole my heart the moment you came to town

Said hello but you were gone when I turned around

Can't get away can't get away even if you try now

I try to tell you but the words just can't be found

* * *

Hey

* * *

I like the way you move, and just the way you are

I can't take it just girl you're pushing too hard

Can't get away, can't let you go, what's a boy to do now?

And I'm asking myself how I survived this far

* * *

Gotta get away from you, girl

* * *

Cause I've never been afraid of love till I found you

Never thought a girl could make me feel the way you do

Never been afraid of, never been afraid of love till I met you

* * *

Ooh, yes she said

* * *

Tell you something that you never ever had

When I stop and think about you it makes me laugh

You took me by surprise, I see it in your eyes, I never had a chance girl

Now I see what you are, it doesn't hurt so bad

* * *

Gotta get away from you girl

* * *

Cause I've never been afraid of love till I found you

Never thought a girl could make me feel the way you do

Never been afraid of, never been afraid of love till I met you


	3. Appendix B: My Funny Valentine

**...and these are the full lyrics to the jazz song I used in the story. Note: I couldn't find my tape, so this is as I remember it...a combination of Ella Fitzgerald's version and Frank Sinatra's.**

* * *

Behold the way our fine-feathered friend

His virtue doth parade

Thou knowest not my dimwitted friend

The picture thou hast made

* * *

Thy vacant brow and thy tussled hair

Conceal thy good intent

Thou noble, upright, truthful, sincere

And slightly dopey gent

* * *

You're my funny Valentine

Sweet, comic, Valentine

You make me smile

With my heart

* * *

Your looks are laughable

Unphotographable

Yet you're my favourite work of art

* * *

Is your figure less than Greek?

Is your mouth a little weak?

When you open it to speak, are you smart?

* * *

But don't change a hair for me

Not if you care for me

Stay, little Valentine, stay

Each day is Valentine's day.

* * *

Is your figure less than Greek?

Is your mouth a little weak?

When you open it to speak, are you smart?

* * *

But _don't _change a hair for me,

Not if you care for me.

Stay, little Valentine, stay.

Each day is Valentine's day.


End file.
